Behind the scenes of Arch Manning’s first start in Texas

AUSTIN, Texas – Arch Manning arrived in rather modest style.

The Texas team buses pulled up to Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium promptly at 4:40 p.m. Saturday. Manning stepped out and walked onto San Jacinto Boulevard wearing a navy blue suit, white shirt and brown striped tie. On his shoulders was a black backpack and the modest burden of Texas fans’ hopes and dreams.

Unlike most of his Longhorn teammates, however, Manning was not wearing headphones. During the team’s traditional march into the stadium, with fans crowding the air with cell phones and horns, the young quarterback took it all in.

“You need some time to appreciate the opportunity,” Manning said later. “I’m blessed to be in this situation. I don’t take it for granted.”

The fifth-largest crowd in school history packed into DKR for a glimpse into the future of Texas football, an in-depth preview of how a five-star talent with legendary pedigree will lead this program a year from now.

What those 102,850 spectators saw Saturday night in No. 1 Texas’ 51-3 victory over UL Monroe was a little more reasonable than their wildest expectations. Manning’s performance in his first collegiate start reminded everyone that he is right on schedule and exactly where he should be in his development process.

The redshirt freshman played like a redshirt freshman: great and not great, with a healthy mix of standout plays and helpful lessons learned. He gave himself a C+ grade for the night after completing 15 of 29 passes for 258 yards with two touchdowns and two interceptions.

Although Manning has the potential to be a big player in Steve Sarkisian’s offense, he has only played five college games, and six and a half hours after arriving at the stadium, he felt the difference.

“The games seem long when you’re there most of the time,” Manning joked. “They last a lot longer than they did in high school. That was very surprising.”

When the Longhorns lost starting quarterback Quinn Ewers to an oblique injury last week against UTSA, Manning had the opportunity to wow the college football world. He came off the bench cold, threw five touchdowns and made it all look a little too easy. It was an impressive feat for a guy with 11 passing attempts in his college career, a backup with a lot of fame but little film.

For a week, Manning was allowed to play quarterback while Ewers focused on his recovery. The sharp increase in the number of Longhorn fans wearing Manning’s No. 16 jersey was easy to see on campus Saturday afternoon. The stadium’s team shop was selling authentic Ewers and Manning jerseys for $149.99. Three hours before kickoff, there were still plenty of Ewers jerseys on the rack, but the Manning jerseys were long gone. The shop produced another run of his jerseys this week in anticipation of demand, but they quickly went.

Brian and Jessica McCreary both wore No. 16 jerseys as they waited for the team to arrive on Bevo Boulevard. They bought their jerseys last year. They also have Ewers jerseys at home. The couple is eager to see more of Manning, but Brian sees the bigger picture just as clearly as Texas’ head coach.

“If you know anything about football,” he said, “you know Quinn is our quarterback.”

Ewers wasn’t happy to miss a game, but he remained optimistic on the Texas sideline. The 25-game starter wore his No. 3 jersey over a jacket, had an earpiece in his left ear to hear plays, and chatted with Manning the entire time. But the task for the evening wasn’t to coach him. Ewers had to get Manning to relax.

“We talked about him trying his best to take it easy with Arch,” Sarkisian said. “Because when Arch takes it easy, he’s really, really good. We try not to let him focus too much.”

Manning needed that encouragement early on. His first drive ended abruptly when he forced a throw under pressure on the second and fourth attempts, which was intercepted. He knew he should have thrown the ball away. Rookie mistake. On the bench, left tackle Kelvin Banks Jr. and center Jake Majors encouraged him.

“It’s going to happen, brother,” Banks said he told him. “Keep going.”

“Just be yourself,” Majors said.

“He has high standards for himself, which is good,” Banks said afterward, “so he can definitely have his moments where he’s really hard on himself.”

Sarkisian requires that next-play mentality to run his system. The message in the week before Manning’s first start: Don’t overanalyze, just execute. The game plan called for long shots on ULM’s secondary. Manning hit quite a few, picking up 210 of his passing yards on eight completed passes.

The trade-off? “When you get into that mode, sometimes you can start to get a little greedy,” Sarkisian said. When asked what throws Manning would like to have back, he thinks of a few overthrows and underthrows in the second half that could have been used as checkdowns for easier finishes.

“He wanted to learn some lessons,” Sarkisian said, “and I think that’s what tonight was about.”

It was never planned for this to be a quarterback controversy. Sarkisian made things clear on Thursday. It’s not just about Ewers being his quarterback. He sees Ewers as a leader in the national title game as he heads to New York for the Heisman Trophy ceremony and proves he’s a top-five draft pick. All of those goals are still in sight.

You won’t hear many head coaches say that publicly, but it speaks to Sarkisian’s confidence. Colt McCoy, who came back to town to be inducted into the Texas Athletics Hall of Honor, has lived with those expectations.

The last quarterback to lead Texas to a national title game sees greatness in both. McCoy knows that these assignments for Manning will ultimately benefit the entire team in the long run in a 12-team College Football Playoff and the long run this team is trying to make. And the Longhorn legend knows better than anyone what it takes to carry that load.

“Being a quarterback at the University of Texas, there’s a lot of pressure, there’s a lot of expectations, everything that comes with being the best,” McCoy said. “For them, I would just say they have a wonderful team around them.”

“I mean, this team is built to win a championship. You just have to go out there and perform, stay focused and support each other.”